Few sounds in this world are worse than an out-of-tune piano.

Wednesday, March 27, 2002

Few sounds in this world are worse than an out-of-tune piano.

Larry Langowski, of Langowski Piano Services in Austin, has made it his mission to make sure pianos in southeastern Minnesota are nothing but perfectly tuned.

Langowski’s business focuses on the repair and tuning of pianos-instruments for which he has had a life-long passion.

"When I was younger, the piano kind of caught my fancy and I thought it was the best of all instruments. I started tuning them when I was 14 years old and working for Gloria Kopet of Kopet’s Music here in Austin," he says.

Eventually, after majoring in economics in college and beginning a master’s program in finance, "it dawned on me that I really didn’t want to go into banking," Langowski remembers. He found his way back to Austin and, in 1976, he says "I hung up my shingle as a full-time tuner."

He does everything by ear, using a tuning hammer and a tuning fork to decide which strings should be tightened and which should be loosened to bring the piano back in tune.

Though many people may try to tune pianos themselves, Langowski says it’s a skill "that I don’t know everyone would have the patience, temperament and precision for."

However, he says "the human ear is very accurate when it comes to something like tuning a piano. It’s really just a case of target identification and once you identify what sound you’re after, it becomes easier."